Congressman Andy Ogles (R-TN) and other congressional members were invited by President Trump to visit El Salvador and meet with country officials and prisoners. Ogles joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00And I do want to change gears just for a second.
00:02Now you do sit on the Homeland Security Committee.
00:05You've recently went on a bipartisan trip to El Salvador.
00:08Can you talk to us a little bit about that trip?
00:11Yeah, so El Salvador obviously is a country that has been in the news a lot because of the Seacott prison.
00:18Some will call it notorious, but it's only, or infamous perhaps, but it's only notorious because of the folks that are there.
00:24And so there's been a lot of members of Congress who have wanted to go to El Salvador and they've been turned away at the prisons.
00:31But that being said, the president, Begali, he invited myself and a couple of other members of Congress to come meet with him to talk about El Salvador's story.
00:39Keep in mind that since the 80s, Civil War, dictators, gang violence, the country has been wrought with violence.
00:46And roughly three years ago, Begali came into power and he cleaned up the country.
00:51And so now you have the situation where just a few years ago, you and I couldn't have walked down the street and been safe in El Salvador, but now we could.
01:00I traveled to the country, met with the president, the ambassador, and the foreign minister.
01:05We went to the prison.
01:07And what I can tell you is, granted, this is the worst that society has to offer.
01:12You know, we talked to one individual.
01:13By the way, one of them was from Nashville, but talked to an individual who's all tatted up, MS-13.
01:19He joined the gang when he was 13, and the question was asked, why are you here?
01:25He said, homicide.
01:27And so how many people have you killed?
01:29And he said, 50, five, zero.
01:31So here's an individual who's operating in the United States of America, a representative of MS-13 between Virginia and New Hampshire, and he's killed over 50 people.
01:40So when you have a woke mayor like Freddie O'Connell, and he's defending illegals, he's defending members of MS-13 or Trindlewag or whatever gang they're affiliated with being deported, that's who he's defending.
01:51He's siding with criminal, serial criminals over the people of his community.
01:57And by the way, just a few days ago in Brentwood, a suburb of Nashville, he had a Chilean gang, a group of Chilean gang members who were arrested because they were rampaging through Brentwood, serial burglars.
02:09We had an individual, a victim of one of those gangs, 15 years old.
02:13She was home by herself.
02:14She was in the bath.
02:15Her father, I think it was her father, saw on the cameras that someone was breaking into the house, and she hid while they ransacked the home.
02:23I mean, you're going to defend those folks who are terrorizing a 15-year-old girl who's in a bathtub?
02:30No, I don't think so.
02:31If it's enough, Seacott is a place where the worst of the worst go, and there's a whole lot of people in Nashville that should be sent there right now.
02:39And I'm sure you know this.
02:41There are human rights concerns regarding Seacott.
02:44Did you witness that firsthand during your visit?
02:48Yeah, I mean, again, you know, folks who haven't seen it can only draw conclusions.
02:53I literally went there.
02:54I saw the facility.
02:56Look, they're in prison, and these folks are guilty of multiple murders and horrendous crimes.
03:02They're fed.
03:04They're housed.
03:05They have medical.
03:06They have lawyers.
03:07I mean, I had an extended tour of both the area where the Venezuelans were being kept and the El Salvadorians and the different conditions they're in.
03:16And, again, it's prison.
03:18It's not day camp.
03:19It's not church camp.
03:20And so they're given the opportunity for physical activity, albeit limited.
03:25They're given the opportunity to read, read the Bible.
03:28But that being said, they're there because of a choice they have made.
03:32And, look, Bugali's come in and cleaned up his country.
03:35This is country, again, that's been wrought with violence.
03:38And if you're a member of a gang in El Salvador, the minimum sentence is 20 years because he has a zero-tolerance policy towards these violent gangs in his community.
03:47And, quite frankly, we need to learn from that and understand that MS-13 is not our friend.
03:54Trinduagua is not our friend.
03:56They're not in our communities for benevolent purposes.
03:59They're here to commit crimes, to make money, to terrorize that community.
04:04And we need to fight back.
04:06As I mentioned, this was a bipartisan trip.
04:08Congressman Gonzalez, a Democrat from Texas, was also there.
04:12And he said this, that he and the president of El Salvador discussed the detention of individuals from the United States.
04:18As a U.S. lawyer, I have concerns about whether due process and constitutional protections are being followed,
04:24specifically regarding the detention of foreign nationals.
04:26Do you share those concerns?
04:29Well, look, you know, anytime someone's being detained, you want to know that there was some process in place that justifies their being there.
04:35But having seen those individuals and their tattoos and their markings for murders, I'm fairly confident.
04:41Again, I didn't go through each individual that was in the prison.
04:44I didn't look at every one of their files.
04:46But I'm fairly certain that the folks there belong there.
04:49I'm fairly certain that the folks there belong there.